This month I have been focused on celebrations but now I want to shift and write about gratitude. I usually share insights on how you can use the blog topic in your business some way which I do, but you can also incorporate it in your personal life.

It should come as no surprise that the majority of the information I found on gratitude has been written at the end of the year from Thanksgiving to Christmas. While it’s nice to express gratitude during the holidays it’s definitely something we can choose to do every day.

It’s no secret that as humans when we feel valued and appreciated we have higher job satisfaction and are more engaged in our work, more invested in our colleagues as well as more productive.  Employees leave companies and volunteers leave professional and non-profit groups when they don’t feel valued.

So how can we incorporate this simple practice into our daily work and personal life with out feeling like it is a burden? If you don’t think you will remember to do this one simple step then put a post it note on your bathroom mirror as a reminder or set a daily reminder on your calendar to pause and reflect on who you are grateful to and what you are grateful for. In other words you can consciously choose gratitude.

If you run a company or manage a team consciously choose to show gratitude to your employees by ‘just doing it’.  In a Fast Company post Howard Jacobson provides several ways businesses can express gratitude to their employees and customers.  He cautions that because we always expect people to do their best and excellent work that we take it for granted. Howard says we suffer from Gratitude Deficit Disorder and by just expressing gratitude for others, this will go down. Are you going to suffer from GDD the rest of your life or are you willing to take the small step to change? Our workplaces would be so much healthier if we just incorporated this simple little practice.

As you move forward through the next day, weeks, months and year make a conscious choice to choose gratitude. Your family, employees and customers will respond in ways that bounce that gratitude right back at you.